My Health My Community results show that Langley City is a walking city

Earlier this year, I posted about My Health My Community which is a comprehensive survey that looks at lifestyle and health outcome indicators for people in Metro Vancouver. My Health My Community is a partnership between Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, Fraser Health Authority, and the eHealth Strategy Office at UBC.

Earlier this spring, I posted about information they compiled which showed that people who walk more have lower body mass which improves health outcomes. Land-use and how people get around is linked, so it should come as no surprise that communities which are designed to be walkable, have more people that walk to get around.

In the summer, I posted infographics on general health indicators for Langley that Fraser Health prepared. My Health My Community has now put together neighbourhood-level health indicator profiles.

Built Environment Neighbourhood Health Indicators - Langley City. Select table to enlarge.

Langley City is a walking city. Some 20.9% of people walk or cycle —active transportation— as part of their commute. 8.9% use public transit. Within Metro Vancouver, the average for people that use active transportation is 13.7%. In the Township of Langley, it is even lower at 8.7%.

When it comes to active transportation and commuting, the City of Langley is similar to the City of Vancouver where 25.7% of people use active transportation as part of their commute.

In the City of Langley, 20.2% of people use active transpiration as the primary way to run errands. This is higher than the regional average. In the Township of Langley, only 6.6% use active transportation when running errands.

When I was elected, I committed to doing what I can to improve the walkability of City of Langley. This means not only ensuring that we have safe active transportation infrastructure, but it also means ensuring that new development projects in the City of Langley contribute to increasing the walkability of our community.

As an example, building a drive-thru in Downtown Langley erodes the walkable of Langley City while building a project which includes street-side storefronts that connect directly to a sidewalk increases walkability.

Visit the My Health My Community website to view the full set of neighbourhood profiles.